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A carrier ship called the Cosco Busan recently smacked into the San Francisco Bay Bridge, ripping a gash in its hull and spilling an estimated 58,000 gallons of oil into the Bay.
Since then, there have been thousands of volunteers showing up to help clean the spill, but bureaucracy, fear of lawsuits and a healthy spattering […]

A carrier ship called the Cosco Busan recently smacked into the San Francisco Bay Bridge, ripping a gash in its hull and spilling an estimated 58,000 gallons of oil into the Bay.

Since then, there have been thousands of volunteers showing up to help clean the spill, but bureaucracy, fear of lawsuits and a healthy spattering of good, old-fashioned incompetence meant that many if not most of these volunteers were turned away, or were sent to unaffected beaches to do trash cleanup.

The problem is reflected in a Facebook group called Save Our Bay that already has more than 20,000 members. The group, whose officers include two members of Congress, is urging the following:

Let’s tell our Governor, Mayors, State Representatives and Congress that they must clean up our bay quickly and thoroughly, fully investigate this accident and the delayed response to it, and do everything in their power to prevent it from ever occurring again!

That’s an important part, but the group also addresses the very real need for volunteers, especially as officials are getting their act together to provide training and HazMat suits to civilians. The page lists six volunteer resources, both national and local, various hotlines, and documentation for a Congressional Hearing. There’s also the 911 tap that NBC aired of the Coast Guard initially refusing cleanup help, back when they were claiming only 140 gallons were dumped. Although I do think the Coast Guard is mostly great and maybe happened to drop an enormous, Bay-sized ball this time.

There are several cleanup events listed on Facebook as well, although it’s unclear as to whether these are sanctioned by officials. A lot of locals were going out with plastic gloves and buckets until officials started threatening to arrest anyone who hadn’t gone through the lengthy (and, reportedly, frequently repetitive and irrelevant) volunteer training. Not that arrest threats ever stopped our plucky Facebook friends, right?

This image is courtesy of Save Our Bay:

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Original source : http://xfruits.com/rkminc/?id=30775&clic=156333113…